Obal, Abimael and Sheba are sons of Joktan the son of Eber, belonging to the South Arabian tribes descended from Joktan, while Peleg the other son of Eber became the ancestor of the Hebrews. They stand in the record of the families descended from Noah's sons who spread from the cradle of the human race into different parts of the earth after the Flood, giving the ancestry of the principal nations in the nearly four hundred years between the Flood and the birth of Abram. Their multiplying and organizing was Satan's form of organized government to overthrow God's plan that the whole earth should be peopled, but the Lord overruled it to make it the origin of all the nations till the end of time, that out of them might be gathered a holy people to fill the world. The early history preserved here is true and trustworthy history, the most ancient and complete record of the distribution of the nations, keeping ancient traditions in their purest form and giving fuller and more reliable light than human theories.
Names and Historical Setting
Obal and Abimael and Sheba were sons of Joktan, who was son of Eber, and belonged to the South Arabian tribes descended from Joktan, while Peleg, the other son of Eber, became the ancestor of the Hebrews. With their brothers they formed the roving Arab tribes living before Abraham, known as the original Arabs distinct from the naturalized Arabs descended from Ishmael. Among those original Arabs Ishmael took a high position with the large portion of Abraham's property he received.
The verse stands in a line of generations traced steadily downward through several generations, which necessarily involves length of time, while Genesis 11 returns to take up another line of events from an earlier point. The confusion of tongues occurred but a little more than one hundred years after the Flood, there is no disarrangement of chronological order, and the word translated Gentiles simply means nations. The peopling recorded here took place in the nearly 400 years between the Flood and the birth of Abram, including the laying of the foundations of large cities, the confusion of tongues, and the clearly established beginning of various nations.
Its setting is after the Flood as men multiplied again upon the earth, did not like to retain God in their knowledge, forgot God and plunged into sin. They united under Nimrod to build Babel in defiance of God, for which God cursed them by confounding their language. By the fourth century after the Flood this apostasy left only a handful of godly persons, so God adopted Abraham's faithful family to save them from ruin and to preserve true piety and faithful worship in the earth. It belongs to the generations after Noah and the Flood that place the origins of Babylon built by Nimrod, Noah's great-grandson, and the history of the peoples near Mount Ararat and the Caucasus region.
Peopling of Nations and Races
Genesis 10:28 belongs to the record of the families or tribes descended from Noah's sons, who spread from the cradle of the human race into different parts of the earth. It stands in the chapter's outline of the ancestry of the principal nations of the earth and of the origin and descent of peoples. It belongs to the account of the scattering of Noah's descendants throughout the earth after the Deluge and of the distribution of nations after the Deluge.
The whole earth was overspread by the sons of Noah in obedience to God's command to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth. That record, together with Genesis 9:18-28, repays much study.
Mankind apart from Noah's family perished in the Flood, and the different divisions of humanity sprang from Shem, Ham, and Japheth. The European or Aryan races sprang from Japheth, the Semitic races of which the Jew and the Assyrian are types sprang from Shem, and the darker races such as have inhabited Africa sprang from Ham. Africa is called the land of Ham for this reason, and the Negro is identified as one of the Hamitic races descended from Ham.
Babylonia is presented as having both Hamite ancestry through Nimrod and Shemitic ancestry through Asshur. This reflects two races occupying the country from an early time, a darker non-Shemitic people with a different language and appearance and a Shemitic people.
Mankind is divided in Genesis 10:1-32 into Hamitic, Semitic, and Japhetic peoples. Babylon, the glory of kingdoms and beauty of the Chaldeans' pride, molded Hamitic and Semitic civilizations by religion and education and influence for fifteen centuries or more. Hamitic civilization put forth mighty endeavor to rule the world and failed, and Babylon fell. The children of Shem, including Obal and Abimael and Sheba, followed and were dominant for many centuries, and then the throne was given to the children of Japheth in the nations of Media and Persia under Cyrus, who placed Darius the Mede upon the throne.
Purpose and Historical Trustworthiness
The multiplying and organizing of peoples seen in Obal and Abimael and Sheba was Satan's form of organized government in the earth, whose avowed object was to overthrow God's plan that the whole earth should be peopled. The Lord overruled that effort and made it the origin of all the nations that should people the earth till the end of time. God's one eternal purpose in the existence of all the nations named there has been that out of them might be gathered a holy and righteous people eventually to fill the whole world.
The early human history preserved here keeps ancient traditions in their purest and least altered form and is historically accurate. It is true and trustworthy history, giving fuller and more reliable information about ancient civilizations than human theories, as seen when colonies pushed out as men multiplied near where the ark rested and strong and intellectual men founded cities, tribes, kingdoms, and empires, with one company going westward and southward to found Hebron and a later colony passing on to found Zoan in Egypt seven years afterward. It belongs to the most ancient, most precious, most complete document on the distribution of the ancient nations of the world, and a correct understanding of sacred chronology throws light on it.
Obal and Abimael and Sheba as sons of Joktan son of Eber belong to the South Arabian tribes descended from Joktan, while Peleg the other son of Eber became the ancestor of the Hebrews. The ruling dynasty in Ur of the Chaldees when Abraham was born there was not Babylonian in origin but belonged to a race at once Hebrew and South Arabian, and contract-tablets prove a Hebrew-speaking population with those characteristics was living in Babylonia at the period assigned to Abraham's lifetime. This complete parallelism between the Biblical account and archaeological discovery shows the tenth chapter of Genesis is true history recording actual conditions of its time, not myth or tradition compiled late in Palestine after all recollection of the facts had passed away.
The account of the peopling of the earth to which these names belong is not a barren list of meaningless names but contains lessons to be understood. Its genealogical distinction of peoples as descendants of Shem, Ham, and Japheth gives no basis for assigning modern English-speaking peoples to Israelite tribes on grounds of national identity or migration.
Obal, Abimael and Sheba are sons of Joktan the son of Eber, belonging to the South Arabian tribes descended from Joktan, while Peleg the other son of Eber became the ancestor of the Hebrews. They stand in the record of the families descended from Noah's sons who spread from the cradle of the human race into different parts of the earth after the Flood, giving the ancestry of the principal nations in the nearly four hundred years between the Flood and the birth of Abram. Their multiplying and organizing was Satan's form of organized government to overthrow God's plan that the whole earth should be peopled, but the Lord overruled it to make it the origin of all the nations till the end of time, that out of them might be gathered a holy people to fill the world. The early history preserved here is true and trustworthy history, the most ancient and complete record of the distribution of the nations, keeping ancient traditions in their purest form and giving fuller and more reliable light than human theories.
Names and Historical Setting
Obal and Abimael and Sheba were sons of Joktan, who was son of Eber, and belonged to the South Arabian tribes descended from Joktan, while Peleg, the other son of Eber, became the ancestor of the Hebrews. With their brothers they formed the roving Arab tribes living before Abraham, known as the original Arabs distinct from the naturalized Arabs descended from Ishmael. Among those original Arabs Ishmael took a high position with the large portion of Abraham's property he received.
The verse stands in a line of generations traced steadily downward through several generations, which necessarily involves length of time, while Genesis 11 returns to take up another line of events from an earlier point. The confusion of tongues occurred but a little more than one hundred years after the Flood, there is no disarrangement of chronological order, and the word translated Gentiles simply means nations. The peopling recorded here took place in the nearly 400 years between the Flood and the birth of Abram, including the laying of the foundations of large cities, the confusion of tongues, and the clearly established beginning of various nations.
Its setting is after the Flood as men multiplied again upon the earth, did not like to retain God in their knowledge, forgot God and plunged into sin. They united under Nimrod to build Babel in defiance of God, for which God cursed them by confounding their language. By the fourth century after the Flood this apostasy left only a handful of godly persons, so God adopted Abraham's faithful family to save them from ruin and to preserve true piety and faithful worship in the earth. It belongs to the generations after Noah and the Flood that place the origins of Babylon built by Nimrod, Noah's great-grandson, and the history of the peoples near Mount Ararat and the Caucasus region.
Peopling of Nations and Races
Genesis 10:28 belongs to the record of the families or tribes descended from Noah's sons, who spread from the cradle of the human race into different parts of the earth. It stands in the chapter's outline of the ancestry of the principal nations of the earth and of the origin and descent of peoples. It belongs to the account of the scattering of Noah's descendants throughout the earth after the Deluge and of the distribution of nations after the Deluge.
The whole earth was overspread by the sons of Noah in obedience to God's command to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth. That record, together with Genesis 9:18-28, repays much study.
Mankind apart from Noah's family perished in the Flood, and the different divisions of humanity sprang from Shem, Ham, and Japheth. The European or Aryan races sprang from Japheth, the Semitic races of which the Jew and the Assyrian are types sprang from Shem, and the darker races such as have inhabited Africa sprang from Ham. Africa is called the land of Ham for this reason, and the Negro is identified as one of the Hamitic races descended from Ham.
Babylonia is presented as having both Hamite ancestry through Nimrod and Shemitic ancestry through Asshur. This reflects two races occupying the country from an early time, a darker non-Shemitic people with a different language and appearance and a Shemitic people.
Mankind is divided in Genesis 10:1-32 into Hamitic, Semitic, and Japhetic peoples. Babylon, the glory of kingdoms and beauty of the Chaldeans' pride, molded Hamitic and Semitic civilizations by religion and education and influence for fifteen centuries or more. Hamitic civilization put forth mighty endeavor to rule the world and failed, and Babylon fell. The children of Shem, including Obal and Abimael and Sheba, followed and were dominant for many centuries, and then the throne was given to the children of Japheth in the nations of Media and Persia under Cyrus, who placed Darius the Mede upon the throne.
Purpose and Historical Trustworthiness
The multiplying and organizing of peoples seen in Obal and Abimael and Sheba was Satan's form of organized government in the earth, whose avowed object was to overthrow God's plan that the whole earth should be peopled. The Lord overruled that effort and made it the origin of all the nations that should people the earth till the end of time. God's one eternal purpose in the existence of all the nations named there has been that out of them might be gathered a holy and righteous people eventually to fill the whole world.
The early human history preserved here keeps ancient traditions in their purest and least altered form and is historically accurate. It is true and trustworthy history, giving fuller and more reliable information about ancient civilizations than human theories, as seen when colonies pushed out as men multiplied near where the ark rested and strong and intellectual men founded cities, tribes, kingdoms, and empires, with one company going westward and southward to found Hebron and a later colony passing on to found Zoan in Egypt seven years afterward. It belongs to the most ancient, most precious, most complete document on the distribution of the ancient nations of the world, and a correct understanding of sacred chronology throws light on it.
Obal and Abimael and Sheba as sons of Joktan son of Eber belong to the South Arabian tribes descended from Joktan, while Peleg the other son of Eber became the ancestor of the Hebrews. The ruling dynasty in Ur of the Chaldees when Abraham was born there was not Babylonian in origin but belonged to a race at once Hebrew and South Arabian, and contract-tablets prove a Hebrew-speaking population with those characteristics was living in Babylonia at the period assigned to Abraham's lifetime. This complete parallelism between the Biblical account and archaeological discovery shows the tenth chapter of Genesis is true history recording actual conditions of its time, not myth or tradition compiled late in Palestine after all recollection of the facts had passed away.
The account of the peopling of the earth to which these names belong is not a barren list of meaningless names but contains lessons to be understood. Its genealogical distinction of peoples as descendants of Shem, Ham, and Japheth gives no basis for assigning modern English-speaking peoples to Israelite tribes on grounds of national identity or migration.